KoopaTV embraces entertainment as both a hobby and a way to present information, and has published over a thousand articles on the videogame industry.We also give out free Nintendo stuff as per the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program, so check that out!

Categories

Search KoopaTV!

Translate

E-mail Subscription

Monday, January 20, 2014

Race-Baiting Infiltrating The Industry

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This isn't an issue stuck just in the political realm.

Many years ago, when Resident Evil 5 from Capcom was first announced and revealed with a trailer, most people noticed how awesome the game looked. But some people chose to view the game differently... looking at it superficially. But not just "wow the game has sexy graphics it must be amazing" type of superficial... but by the colour of people's skins.

So as a result of black zombies in Africa (which is populated by a strong majority of black people), Resident Evil 5 is decried as racist by race-baitersacross the Internet. These are punks looking to get hits on their websites and make a name for themselves. That concept may seem familiar to you, the reader, and that's probably why you're here. Well here's the difference between those people (dun dun dun) and me.I've actually been in the field and made something. And that something? People also think it's racist — they look at it and think, "The maker of this is a hater of black people." And that couldn't be further from the truth. It just so happens that every character Little Mac fights against is black. But that's not because I'm a racist or anyone else on my staff is a racist. That's simply a product of the fact that Trayvon Martin's friends who testified in the trial were all black. If Chad Joseph or Rachel Jeantel were white, then there would be three black bosses in Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! and two white bosses. But we gotta work with what we got, so coincidentally everyone Mac fights is black. Honestly it might've been an even more interesting story were some of the people white because some of Sharpnard's dialogue would've changed, but in terms of gameplay everything would be exactly the same.

If you beat the game — if you haven't, go do so (which means that what I'm about to say is a SPOILER) — then you would see the credits and the character endings.With the exception of Mad King Sharpnard (who died) and Rachel Jeantel, every black character in the game has a very sympathetic character ending. Meanwhile, the one white character in the game who immediately thinks of things just in terms of race (Mac's trainer, Adam Pollock) lives the rest of his life in misery. Go ended up completing school and getting married. Chad realized the value of saving and bought a PlayStation 4. Unfortunately, he fell victim to videogame addiction because it wasn't properly recognized as an addiction. That has nothing to do with race or how we feel about Chad but a small commentary on the mental health system in the country. The Hooded Protestor who stole Mac's bike (which is obviously a reference to that meme) tried to apologize to Little Mac and also got his GED. Rachel Jeantel's ending is pretty bad, but she does at least get a job at the end. Trayvon himself gets the most sympathetic ending out of everyone, with it specifically wishing him to rest in peace and deeming him an icon. It expresses how unfortunate it is that people like Sharpnard took advantage of his death for their own greed. Sharpnard himself died of course, but his ending portrays a desegregated happy world. That's portrayed as the ideal future. If the game was racist, why would it have that idyllic ending? Of course, Little Mac himself is not anything close to racist and is the most level-headed character in the game. He's career-oriented and is clearly not an ideologue, only snapping at Sharpnard in the end because Sharpnard is clearly despicable. And that ending situation was pretty horrible, because Mac sees people as individuals while Mad King Sharpnard sees them as a collective mob to be controlled.

People have written before about the lack of racial diversity of characters in games. It's definitely true, there is a lack of diversity if you do a study on it. It happens that if you would include Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! into that, the amount of diversity, on average across the industry, increases. We don't just have one black dude and have him be the Token Black Guy. We have a diverse range of minorities with diverse personalities. One of the posters on GameFAQs said,

"I'm sick of studies. I'm black and I swear if one more person tries to
"defend" my race through television, race, books, or hell even black
history month. I personally see no reason for it in this day and age. I
saw a point for it in the past, but you can't want true racism to
disappear while still have a month like that. I have in depth points,
but I don't want to get to far off the subject.

When it comes to
games the characters should be likeable. I shouldn't play Uncharted,
look at Drake and be like "Why don't they ever have an black explorers."
No I just look and be like "What an awesome psycho adventurer." If you
demand more black characters play Fallout or Oblivion and have fun or
quit gaming."

For another perspective, let's listen to Congress of Racial Equality member Niger Innis.

On this Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day, let us reflect on the other game KoopaTV claims to be responsible for: Jessie Go Jr. Remedial Algebra, which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. actually appears in. In... one forme or another.

That's the final boss music, by the way. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is well-respected around these parts and especially in that game.

Anyway, we all know what I really prefer. I like it when games star non-human, non-racial characters. But there are always some people who try to look at everything racially.

When I asked him what does it matter, he blocked me.

Apparently the Mario games are about the oppression of Goombas (who represent black people) by their Koopa slavemasters (white people) and how they're being stomped on by Mario (systemic racism in society) even after they're "liberated" from the tyrannical Koopas (treatment of blacks post Civil War). Goomba settlements post-war — even if segregated from the rest of the community — are similarly invaded and ruined by the Koopa forces in an effort to bring them down, such as Goomba Village in Paper Mario (the Civil Rights era). The infrastructure of Goomba Village and the infrastructure and commerce of Toad Town are clearly different, and you see almost no effort of desegregation between the two (separate-but-equal).

Or you could see what I just wrote as a load of crap. I could go on and on (I almost want to for fun) but you can make connections out of anything. That's the entire basis of literature class in school, after all. Kids are trained to do this at an early age: Is it any wonder that people race-bait EVERYTHING, then? We should be conscious of this, though, and reject that mentality everywhere we encounter it. Especially in the young videogame industry.

Oh, let me anticipate and answer an objection from the crowd: Why did you even make Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! to begin with? I spoke of having restrictions on the property, but we chose the property knowing the restrictions to begin with. If you want to really know the origins of it, look no further than this July 12 2013 (a day before the Zimmerman trial verdict was announced) conversation:

For the record, [Koopa Keep] is both Rawk and YoshiRider123 in this log.

And if you're being astute, you may wonder what "Jessie Go Jr. Ace Attorney" is. That's actually Jessie Go Jr. Two. Anyway, so you might think, "Ah hah, they knew the racial implications all along! It was embedded into the fundamental design!" Well, as you can plainly see, Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! was directly inspired by that image Rawk found. Probably from 4chan, incidentally. The fact I brought up Mac's racial identity (the same way Adam Pollock does in the game) is just to go along with the idea that we don't need or have to have George Zimmerman as a playable character. You know, the "We'll use the Mac sprite and say it's Zimmerman" quote. Of course, Mac ended up being Mac and Zimmerman did end up in Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! as himself. Little Mac is not even close to a George Zimmerman proxy — he is his own character and the game is better for it. In fact, I'll state this just to reinforce the whole point of this article and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision: While Zimmerman and Little Mac are of the same racial background, they are almost complete opposites in personality.

George Zimmerman can't throw a punch. Little Mac is a professional boxer. Zimmerman constantly tries to get attention for himself. Little Mac barely even talks. In fact, just watch this hilarious MSNBC Al Sharpton clip where the clinical psychologist (or so he claims) Jeff Gardere basically describes George Zimmerman as The Phantom from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies.

If we were to take this clip seriously (as intended by MSNBC and Al Sharpton), then Zimmerman is a narcissistic monster who sees the world as revolving around him who cannot feel emotions naturally and has to fake them like a "chameleon" (the chameleon line is the funniest part of this clip). Little Mac, on the other hand, reacts appropriately to situations. Well, he acts mild-mannered most of the time, as opposed to how everyone else is larger-than-life. He doesn't want to offend anyone, but he's also easily surprised at the many zany people and situations he encounters. In other words, none of this is natural to him. He copes by just treating it as a series of boxing matches. Meanwhile, George Zimmerman relishes the spotlight and larger-than-life situations. Completely different people — same race. But that race doesn't matter in the end, just like it doesn't matter in real life.

So let's try to end this article again: Stop race-baiting. Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! was a good idea to make because what inspired it were the larger-than-life characters during the Zimmerman trial that translate surprisingly well to the larger-than-life requirements of Punch-Out!!. And Resident Evil 5 features shooting black people because it's in Africa. That's all, folks. There is more to life and more interesting and deep analysis to make than just looking at the colour of someone's skin. That's what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would think, too.

If you haven't noticed, Ludwig writes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s name like that just like he writes out Barack Hussein Obama's name. Ludwig is somehow an expert on racial matters as an old white man himself. He also developed both Trayvon Tyson's Punch-Out!! and Jessie Go Jr. Remedial Algebra, the latter of which exclusively only containing characters that are black. This happens to be KoopaTV's 200th article.

We embrace your comments. No identification required, but if you don't comment as Anonymous, then you will be entered into the KoopaTV Loyalty Rewards Program and may win prizes if you keep up activity!Expect a reply between 1 minute to 24 hours. We advise you to receive an e-mail notification for when we do reply. Also, see our Disclaimers.

Spamming is bad, so don't spam. Spam includes random advertisements and obviously being a robot. Our vendor may subject you to CAPTCHAs if you are not using a Google account. We're not happy about that, either.